Class/magic feature branch

[PowerWyrm]

Playing latst version as a Paladin: I learn Heroism at level 12, but when I cast it... it does nothing. Turns out it has a duration of... -2!

[Nick]

A quick look at recent mage winners on the ladder indicates that, besides books and ignoring attack wands for now, the main things carried are:

• Healing items
• !Restore Mana
• Mapping/Enlightenment items
• Restore life items
• Object detection of some sort

with the first three being pretty much universal.

My guess is that for the new mage speed items would need to be added to that list, but not much else. Have I missed anything?

As for attacks, the new mage has certainly lost some attack spells (and gained a couple), but has it's endgame damage output actually been reduced?

[Philip]

I would be fine with a class that uses only ever uses mana to damage monsters, so long as they don't really use their mana to do anything else. They could have great variety in terms of elements and such, but would have mage-level melee and archery, and maybe priest or ranger device skill. No detection spells, no teleportation (to make keeping out of melee easier, have some of the offensive spells push monsters back), no buffs, no recharging, no banish or destruction, just various forms and shapes of direct damage. Maybe they even get to have dispel all, and cones, and 0-radius balls and other esoteric formats of damage, to keep stuff varied.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

A tear shed for the lowly mage. Always these inroads against their power. Resenting their endgame abilities shortchanges the difficulty of getting them there in the first place.

[Voovus]

I would guess the resistance to having a Type 1 mostly boils down to "it would be significantly stronger than the other two types, and thus less interesting/fun to play." It's not clear that a Type 1 mage could have tradeoffs that give a similar level of involvement as the other types, in other words. Consider that the current mage already has a d0 hit die (i.e. only gets native hitpoints from the racial hit die) and STR/CON penalties. What are you going to do to the Type 1, give it aggravation?

As wobbly said, you can penalize HP or AC. You can also reduce carrying capacity, either by further reducing Str or creating an extra flag for mages that halves their carrying capacity. Or increase their exp level costs. Or make them permanently afraid. Or not be able to carry a weapon (or armour/shield/bow or anything that weighs more than 10lb). Or unable to use gold. Or reduce their speed. Or make them allergic to icky things. Failing that, give it aggravation.

[wobbly]

I never played them in pos but my understanding was that it was worse hps & a massive AC penalty. That's dependent on melee range being much more dangerous & hardier to avoid though.

[Derakon]

It sounds to me like there's a fairly high demand for a Type 1 mage, in Derakon's terminology. There were some older posts in this thread to that effect too. Any particular reason why there shouldn't be one? After all, not everyone has to like playing every class.

I would guess the resistance to having a Type 1 mostly boils down to "it would be significantly stronger than the other two types, and thus less interesting/fun to play." It's not clear that a Type 1 mage could have tradeoffs that give a similar level of involvement as the other types, in other words. Consider that the current mage already has a d0 hit die (i.e. only gets native hitpoints from the racial hit die) and STR/CON penalties. What are you going to do to the Type 1, give it aggravation?

Of course there's no reason why the classes have to be balanced, but each class should have a clear set of "this is what it's good at" and "this is what it's bad at." When you have a spell for every occasion and no real limits on using them, there's very little that you're bad at and plenty that you're good at, so where's the tension?

[Voovus]

It sounds to me like there's a fairly high demand for a Type 1 mage, in Derakon's terminology. There were some older posts in this thread to that effect too. Any particular reason why there shouldn't be one? After all, not everyone has to like playing every class.

As a side note, one could make different races support different playstyle mages. For instance, hobbits and gnomes are very similar at the moment. But if, say, hobbits had +0 Int and +50 magic device, while gnomes had +5 Int and +0 magic device, then hobbit mages would naturally be device-oriented, while gnome mages would be spell-oriented.

[Derakon]

Let's consider a few scenarios:

1. The mage has a spell for every occasion, and the spells are cheap enough (or the mage has enough mana) that they don't need to be carefully managed. The mage does not need to think carefully about what tools to use for solving their problems, though they may have other sources of pressure (e.g. low HP) limiting how they deal with things.

2. The mage has a spell for every occasion, but spells are expensive enough that they cannot be used freely. The mage will need non-spell options to deal with most situations, as they won't have the stamina to solve every problem with spells. That means using magic devices, bows, melee, etc.

3. The mage does not have a spell for every occasion, but the spells they do have are cheap. They can readily solve some problems and have substantial difficulty solving others, which must be solved with non-spell means (devices, etc.) or not at all.

The old Vanilla mage is very roughly a type 2. It sounds like the new mage Nick made is more of a type 3.

[wobbly]

I disagree with "a mage should". There are countless mages in fantasy literature. Mages who are master swordsman are almost as common as pure casters. Gandalf uses a sword more than he casts. The d&d versions isn't a pure caster (spells/day). As to sorcerors they don't necessarily take a radical rebalance. They exist in other variants.

[Philip]

I entirely agree. Mages should rely on spells/magic for any serious battles, only falling back to melee/bows for small fry it isn't worth expending mana on

The problem with this is that it is the opposite of how it could conceivably work - if mana is plentiful enough to take you through a serious battle, then expending mana on small fry is going to be the lowest cost option every time. Bows have a permanent cost in the form of possibly lost arrows, melee costs hp and can lead to inventory damage, devices can't be recharged to their original values, but spells only cost sp, which regenerates.

The notable exception is Ironband, in which SP does not in fact regenerate over time, but only on a new level, so players have to conserve it very carefully. This means that for certain enemies you might use direct damage spells, because they are powerful and reliable, but with small fry you will indeed use the comparatively plentiful arrows and melee (there are no devices) because you can't afford to kill an entire level of monsters with spells. This is not a system that would be viable in V without a significant overhaul of just about everything.

[Derakon]

that's just being silly, saying that the MAGE shouldn't rely on spells for damage. Yes it should.

The mage should rely on magic, in whatever forms that takes. Spells are just one kind of magic.

[Huqhox]

that's just being silly, saying that the MAGE shouldn't rely on spells for damage. Yes it should.

I entirely agree. Mages should rely on spells/magic for any serious battles, only falling back to melee/bows for small fry it isn't worth expending mana on

[Sky]

that's just being silly, saying that the MAGE shouldn't rely on spells for damage. Yes it should.

[PowerWyrm]

Mages are not really a problem. I've won a with a bookless mage using only devices and it's really not that hard. See spells as a support thing rather than the main source of damage. What's really missing is a "pure caster" class, like the Sorceror in ToME or PWMAngband.